A Red Carpet Welcome: Adolescent Clients Are VIPs

Young people sharing and opening up to one another is a powerful thing, explains Robbert Ouko, a Youth Champion with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation’s (EGPAF) Red Carpet Program, supported by ViiV Healthcare. For adolescents and youth living with HIV, strong connections with peers are a fundamental support to living a healthy life. Youth Champions like Robbert help other young people get connected to healthcare services, and stay connected and engaged once they’re there.

“The introduction of peer Champions within the facility has really helped to maintain linkage [to care],” Robbert explains.

Through this peer-driven outreach and implementation, EGPAF and our Youth Champions meet young people where they’re at: their health facilities and their schools. The Red Carpet Program comes to them, letting the youth and adolescents who step into facility doors know: they are valued, they are not alone, and they have so much to contribute to the world.

Champions for Change

So far, Robbert and the Red Carpet team have seen incredible success. The first step to ending AIDS in adolescents and young people is for each of them to know their HIV status, so Champions work to identify, engage, and link adolescents and youth who may otherwise fall through the cracks. Once a client knows her or his status, the Red Carpet Program makes sure they have the next step laid out for them.

A key support for these young people can come from adult allies in their facilities and schools. “At the end of the day, we all have the goal of ensuring that the girls adhere to the drugs to stay healthy,” says Filgona Kayore, a teacher at Lodwar Girls Primary School. After attending an EGPAF Red Carpet training program, Filgona began to work with six students to supervise their drug intake, nutrition, and monthly visits to the health facility. For Filgona, “the point is that the girls find someone that they can trust.”

“As a Champion,” explains Joshua Oliyo, a young Kenyan working with the Red Carpet Program, “I conduct individual treatment preparation, counseling, and messaging to all the youth who have tested HIV positive.” This way, Joshua and his colleagues can make sure every person living with HIV whom they reach with their testing services is immediately provided with the additional services they need.

In Kenya, for example, 98.8% of Red Carpet participants living with HIV have been linked to care, and 87% of them are still connected with that care after six months. The success of the Kenyan model is mirrored in Malawi, where retention has improved from 54.4% to 87% after the first year of the project.

Having other young people leading outreach to their peers ensures that Red Carpet clients are understood and supported.

“I managed to follow up with one adolescent that was not linked [to care], as he was doing exams,” explains Youth Champion Brian Oyungi. Brian was in a unique position to understand the pressures and busyness of an adolescent’s life, and was able to get his peer connected back to his health facility and started on the medication he needed.

Young People Lead the Way

This high level of participation and engagement ensures that young people living with HIV have access to the treatment they need. With the right support and access to medication, HIV can be managed like any other chronic disease. Although there is not yet a cure for HIV, when following the proper treatment—tailored to their own needs—many people living with HIV reduce the virus to such a point that it is undetectable in their bodies.

In Kenya, Red Carpet Program Centers of Excellence facilities implement model programs and serve as places for learning for other facilities. On average, 93% of young people at these Centers of Excellence are virally suppressed, meaning that 93% of participants have reached an undetectable level of HIV. When HIV is undetectable, it is untransmissible to other people.

Rolling Out the Red Carpet

Young people who share their experiences, thoughts, and leadership with one another are treating their peers as the VIPs they are.

“They really share a lot,” says Robbert, explaining his group of Peer Champions’ success. When a new client has peer support, they know that “he or she is not the only one. This is a joint thing, and there is life after being positive.”

Ultimately, the global community will end AIDS only with the leadership of young people among their peers—and at the forefront of the larger movement for an AIDS-free generation. The Red Carpet Program Peer Champions’ efforts are rippling beyond their immediate communities, as tools for this program are freely accessible online for anyone who could benefit from them.

A red carpet is rolled out for each and every young person in the program, to walk into a space where their health is protected and their dreams can flourish.